


The Only One Left

by leviathanchronicles



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Anxiety, Character Study, Dysphoria, Gen, This fandom knows what to expect from me by now, This sounds so sad but I promise it's okay, Trans Male Character, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 13:30:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12300129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leviathanchronicles/pseuds/leviathanchronicles
Summary: There are a lot of things that Michael Mell didn't ask for.





	The Only One Left

Sitting next to Jeremy is the first in a long line of things that Michael Mell doesn’t ask for.

It’s eleven years before he changes his name to Michael that he meets Jeremy Heere. Neither of their clothes fit quite properly; Michael’s mother sighs and comments on how they grow too quickly to justify constantly buying new clothes, and Jeremy’s mother laughs and shakes her head. The teacher, not one to stick to the traditional alphabetic naming, latches onto this meeting and sits them next to each other. After all, their parents got along; they have that in common, and they’re five year olds, so they really don’t need anything else.

At least the list begins with a positive event; from there on out, he becomes more used to bitterness than pleasant surprise. 

He doesn’t ask for a stupid, cliche crush on his best friend, but he gets it and then some. As soon as he figures out what a crush really is, he realizes he’s well past that stage; fifteen years old, and he knows he could spend his entire life with no one but Jeremy, and it would be okay. If left to that, he would later admit to it being an immature infatuation at best, but it never fades. 

It’s one of the only things he doesn’t say anything to Jeremy about, at least for a couple years. It’s the summer before junior year when he comes out as trans, and when that conversation goes well, he’s riding too high on his relief to keep from admitting that he’s like,  _ totally  _ into Jeremy.

That conversation goes well, too, but only in that Jeremy doesn’t instantly recoil. By the end of it, Michael is wiping away tears and they’re both apologizing, but they both swear that it’s better this way, anyways, and their friendship is too strong to let it become awkward over a crush. He doesn’t ask why, and Jeremy doesn’t decrease his physical and verbal affection for the other. Michael is never really sure if that’s better than if he had done so. 

Eventually, it gets to a point where he can joke about it, and maybe that makes Jeremy uncomfortable--he doesn’t know, honestly, but he does know that if he doesn’t turn it into something to mock, it’ll turn into another night of muffled crying. Jeremy bemoans his lack of a relationship; Michael winks and says, “If all else fails, my parents love you.” Because they do; Jeremy can do no wrong in their eyes. It’s one of the few things they and Michael agree on.

He doesn’t ask for half the things his parents give him. They don’t understand anything about him. They wrap up clothes he would’ve worn before coming out and present them to him like they were weaved by Arachne herself, and he buries them in a drawer just so he can say he still has them if asked. The gifts are expensive and useless, as so many expensive things seem to be, but he knows they think they’re doing well, so he doesn’t ask for the stuff he wants, either. 

He loves being trans, but that doesn’t negate the fact that he absolutely didn’t ask for it. Most of the time, it’s alright; no one cares enough about him to really bother him over it, and while his dysphoria is bad, it isn’t unbearable. Besides, he has his best friend with him every step of the way, a friend more than willing to accompany him to the bathroom or in clothing stores.

When that friend is absent, Michael uses the single stall bathroom or waits until he gets home. More often, though, he leaves early--he’d never had much devotion to his attendance anyways, and for that period of time, there’s nothing keeping him at school. 

So he goes home, throws a bean bag at the wall a few times, blasts music through his earbuds. When his parents get home, they have no idea he hasn’t been at school; they have no idea about anything until his grades come in at midterms. They aren’t really shocked by how he’s barely passing, but he knows they’re disappointed.

He doesn’t ask for high expectations; whereas everyone else his age seems to demand respect, he’s content to hide in the shadow of parents with doctorates and jobs at Montclair State University. In the same vein, he doesn’t want everyone to love him; he’d like to get nodded at in the hallways, maybe, and he’d like to rock retro references without people rolling their eyes, but he has never wanted more friends. 

When he gets a large handful of them, it is because of Jeremy, but he keeps his bitterness well covered. He knows he isn’t enough, not anymore. It isn’t Jeremy’s fault, not really--Michael has always known of his dissatisfaction with their lack of popularity, and to expect him to return to it is unfair. 

It’s just that sometimes, Michael thinks it’s a bit unfair of everyone to assume Michael wants more friends. He doesn’t, plain and simple, and all these friends are so loud and so social. You can’t just hang out and play videogames with five people; someone has to pull out food, then someone else wants to play music, then he has had a headache and wants to take a nap, and why do they always come over to his house, anyways? He never asked them to come over.

But Jeremy asked him if they could, and sometimes, he knows it’s as good as it’s going to get.

Despite Jeremy’s claims that they love him, he is an outsider. The SQUIPs are awful, awful things, and he’s endlessly grateful that he never received one, but sometimes his new friends make jokes he doesn’t understand, or reference events he wasn’t there for. Sometimes, their brain connection is strong enough to let thoughts go through, and they all laugh and make snide comments about whatever just popped into their minds.

Michael doesn’t ask what they’re thinking about. That’s fine, because he knows if he does, everyone will tell him not to worry about it; Jeremy will laugh and shrug and change the subject, and Michael won’t press it, even though he wants to. 

He does ask for breaks from the activity, if only because he knows he will burst at the seams if he stays. He always gets the feeling that Jeremy is annoyed when he mutters that he needs to go outside or upstairs, a suspicion his mind confirms whenever Jeremy casually says something like “You know, most of them really are cool people.” Michael always wants to snap back, rolls his eyes, and move on. He didn’t ask for these shiny new friendship opportunities, and he shouldn’t be expected to take what he didn’t ask for, like he’s some kid whose parents spent a lot of money on him but never actually listened to what he had to say.

Sometimes, he notes, his metaphors aren’t really anything other than thinly veiled comments about himself.

Regardless of his feelings about his new crew, they stick around, bound too tightly by mutual trauma to do anything else. Michael knows it is cruel to be bitter about the matter, and he would never admit to it, but he is. Over a year after the entire debacle, prom rolls around. He doesn’t really want to go--knowing his classmates, it’ll be a mess--but everyone is  _ so  _ excited, and it’ll be  _ so  _ fun, and we all  _ want  _ you to be there, Michael. He’s so sure.

Technically, they’re all going together, but it’s obvious that Jeremy is really going with Christine. Their relationship has stayed strong, and it’s been good for Jeremy, as much as Michael hates to admit it. Sometimes, he’ll catch him smiling at a text before taking the initiative to do something he never would’ve done two years ago. It hurts, not from jealousy so much as insecurity, because she has done more for Jeremy in months than he feels he has done in years. She gets both his newfound confidence and his soft words, and Michael gets the after-effects. It’s just as well: the glow that Jeremy starts to earn is contagious, and it’s enough to keep Michael from falling apart. 

They meet at Jeremy’s house, mostly because Jeremy’s dad insisted on taking pictures. The whole thing is ridiculous, with stupid poses, bad lighting, and an inability for all of them to look at the camera at the same time. It takes the better part of an hour, but by the end of it, Michael can’t say he’s especially annoyed. 

At one point, Rich shoves him back so he can get into an even more absurd pose, and Michael stumbles and laughs. When he glances over to see Jeremy tenderly tilting Christine’s chin up, his chest only burns for a moment before he’s pulled back by Mr. Heere saying that they need to take a serious picture before he runs out of storage.

Eventually, they’re off, later than they intended, all of them piling into the minivan Jeremy had gotten for a suspiciously low price--”I guess both of us have stupid cars now!” “At least my car wasn’t tainted by a bunch of kids”--Jake driving, mostly because Rich wants shotgun and it’s a bad look for Christine to be a row behind Jeremy.

Michael doesn’t ask to sit on Jeremy’s other side, but he is placed there nonetheless, and he doesn’t complain. 

**Author's Note:**

> alright let's keep this kind of organized  
> 1\. Michael is a pretty unreliable narrator, which is why everyone comes off as kind of overbearing and insensitive. He's just perceiving them that way, and I've got to work on making stuff like that more obvious.  
> 2\. Y'all know I am so desperate for sweet commentary. Give me some critiques...tell me what to do. Do you like these character studies? Should I start doing things with more actual plot? Are you into the idea of an actual fic about the whole coming out/unrequited crush scene?  
> 3\. Midterms are this week and I'm writing this bs instead of studying. Send me some good brain vibes.  
> 4\. Please clap.


End file.
